Nuketown Radio Active

Thoughts about Nuketown's upcoming Monster Week extravaganza leads off Episode #49 of Nuketown Radio Active as I discuss about the movies I want to review and ask listeners for suggestions. With the monsters out of the way, I talk about my progress on the geek fitness front and my experiences registering for GenCon 2007. In Netheads, I take a look at the upcoming SimCity game for Nintendo DS, suggest folks check out the Dire Cafe social networking site, ramble on about Pirate solitare, and discover a Geek Dad Blog at Wired.com. Finally, this week's review is the board game Catan for Xbox 360, a computerized version of the classic German board game Settlers of Catan.

A particularly nasty round of family colds sidelines Radio Active for a month, but the show's finally back with an update on Baby Nuke's new love of Cheerios, news of Nuketown's new Top of the Pile comic book review column, a rundown of my wife Sue's favorite crafty podcasts, and news of a new D&D utility for the Mac.

News of the new science fiction webzine SpaceWesterns.com opening for submissions leads of Radio Active #47 as I'm not only a fan of the zine, but one of the volunteers helping to read through its slush pile. The mail bag has responses on my debate over getting a notebook vs. a desktop computer, and as that debate draws to a close I spend some time geeking out over my latest web toy, Twitter.

In Netheads, I take a look at the Steve Jackson Games official Fnordcast and Roll 2d6 in a Random Direction podcasts and discuss the new Double 0 RPG beta. This week's musical interlude is provided by the band Boxed Octopus and their geek song "Science Boy".

Things take a horror tinged turned in this week's podcast with reviews of Midnight Syndicate's retrospective horror music album Out of Darkness and the horror-movie inspired board game Betrayal at House on the Hill by Avalon Hill.

Elsewhere in the podcast as for feedback from geek parents about the merits of getting a notebook computer vs. a desktop computer and start looking for some craft/mommy podcasts for my wife to listen to on her spiffy new 30 GB white iPod. Finally, Net News has the welcome return of the Harping Monkey's Round Table podcast, which ends its hiatus just in time for me to start doing home improvements again.

Baby Luke learns to crawl and joins me as a guest host of the latest edition of Radio Active. In addition to news about our littlest geek, I've got news about a new "Game Day" column that's running on Nuketown and a review of Gears of War, as well as audio feedback from Doug of the Geek Acres podcast.

In Net News, I catch up everyone on podcasts that I'm listening to nowadays including old favorites like Random Signal and Roll 2d6 as well as new ones like the audio novelization of Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe, the musical stylings at Mainstage at the Monkey and the covert happenings at the Stealth Geek podcast. Finally, I have a review of Vernor Vinge's science fiction novel A Deepness in the Sky.

Nuketown Radio Active gets Dugg (or at least an entry on Digg) while I struggle to organize comics that haven't been filed in a decade. If you're similarly organizationally challenged, then figure out how to hack your life with the 50 best Life Hacks from 2006 and an exceedingly geek calendar for 2007.

Rounding things out is a review of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the expansive role-playing game for Windows and Xbox 360 in which you play a hero who saves an empire from demonic invasion ... or not.

Radio Active's long dark tea time of the soul ends with Episode 43, in which I discuss a crazy January that saw my Xbox fall under the spell of the red rings of death while I destroyed my "integrated home theatre system" with a static electricity-empowered touch. Looking ahead to 2007, I talk about some of my personal goals, including reaching a weight of 190 lbs., coverting my campaign web site to a wiki, and writing a novel.

Nuketown Radio Active is a twice-a-month podcast dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of geekdom. The show features geek, technology and gaming links from around the Web as well as book, movie, game and podcast reviews.

The podcast has been published since March 2005 and is hosted by Ken Newquist, Nuketown's editor and founder. A web developer by day, he's also a freelance staff writer for Knights of the Dinner Table and SCI-FI.com.

Discussion turns to books and coffee as I reminisce about my 35th birthday, a geeky Christmas, and the surprising fusion of my Xbox 360 with a spiffy new iPod. In Net News I look at Villain Talk, the podcast for evil geniuses, take a bite out of a gingerbread TIE fighter and find out what geeky women at the She's Such a Geek blog.

Sickness and teething played havoc with Radio Active's publication schedule, but the podcast returns with a shorter show that catches folks up on happenings around the thermonuclear burg. In Net News, I take a look at the Harping Monkey Inn's virtual digs within Second Life, talk about the SysStat widget for Mac OS X, and discuss the Model Maker's Podcast, a show dedicated to tips and tutorials for wargamers and modelers.